Architect Pierre Lelardoux was born in France in 1843. He came to the United States in 1870.  Going to Chicago, he is known to have designed a six-story apartment building at the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Peck Court. He also worked in partnership with J. Austin in Chicago.

He arrived in Denison, Texas, in 1878. On January 16, 1880, the Denison Daily News reported that P. Lelardoux, "Denison architect," was drawing plans to convert the basement of the Grayson County Courthouse into a jail for county convicts. In 1884 he was doing design work for the MK&T Railroad in Muskogee, Indian Territory (Oklahoma), when Waples-Platter Grocer Company engaged him to design its new headquarters in Denison.

In 1892, Lelardoux announced that he was leaving the profession of architecture and began selling insurance and real estate. At that time he stated in print that he had been in Denison for fourteen years. He created Denison's Lelardoux Addition. He also began patenting inventions. Even so, around 1900 he designed a large house at 412 West Morton Street for J. B. McDougall and his wife.

Lelardoux's wife Marguritte died on October 29, 1894, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Calvary Cemetery in Denison.

Soon after 1900, Lelardoux moved to the San Francisco Bay area in California, where his daughter (Marie Lelardoux Pettithomme) lived.

The remarkable structures Lelardoux is known to have designed in Denison are:

--Residence of Manly Hardy Sherburne, 1103 W. Gandy St., 1880

--McDougall Opera House. 221-223 West Main Street. Constructed 1880-1881.

--The Denison Gate. Constructed 1884. Exhibited at New Orleans International Exposition. Subsequently featured at the Dallas Fair and then at Exposition Hall, Denison.

--Waples-Platter Grocer Company, 104 East Main Street. Constructed 1885.

--State National Bank, 300 West Main Street. Constructed in 1885.

--Residence of Dr. Alex W. Acheson and Sarah C. Acheson, 1419 West Woodard Street, Denison. Constructed 1885.

--Residence of R. C. Foster, 1107 West Sears Street. Located on northwest corner of North Tone Avenue. Constructed 1885.

--Residence of John B. McDougall, 412 West Morton Street. Construction was completed in 1900.

--Leeper-Boldrick Building (Security Building), 331 West Main Street. Constructed 1891.

- - Quinn Chapel AME Church building, constructed 1901

--O'Maley Building, constructed 1902

 The only one that survived in 2016 was the McDougall residence, now called "Inn of Many Faces."